The present lot is one among a series of paintings that Rameshwar Broota explored in the early 2000s, and represents his ongoing preoccupation with the contemporary human situation. Evolving from his existential canvases that the artist had begun painting in the 1980s, these large canvases embody the zenith of his process of paring his work of all that he deemed superfluous, including narrative and colour. In place of these elements, the artist...The present lot is one among a series of paintings that Rameshwar Broota explored in the early 2000s, and represents his ongoing preoccupation with the contemporary human situation. Evolving from his existential canvases that the artist had begun painting in the 1980s, these large canvases embody the zenith of his process of paring his work of all that he deemed superfluous, including narrative and colour. In place of these elements, the artist concentrates on conveying the exact textures of specific anatomical details, objects and architectural elements, giving his paintings an almost sculptural presence.

The central focus of Broota's art is man; whose very body and its relationship with its surroundings become the site for conflict and resolution. "Through repeated acts of resistance, the male body, with its skeletal frame or stolid musculature, plays out its postures of acceptance or confrontation." (Gayatri Sinha, "Edge of the Precipice: The Art of Rameshwar Broota," Rameshwar Broota, New Delhi: Vadehra Art Gallery, 2001, p. 24)

In A child, then youth, now Man, Broota depicts a larger-than-life finger - a recurring motif in his works from this decade - ominously stretching against the canvas, placed suggestively over the figure of a man standing with arms akimbo in the background. Broota works with a technique of layering and scratching away paint, which he developed in the 1980s, thereby creating a finely textured and richly tonal surface. This method succeeds in giving the painting a sensual quality, further accentuated by "...the painted finger with its bony structure," whose "convoluted folds of skin appears time and again like an instrument, a phallic metaphor, or in a gesture of thoughtful communication." (Ella Datta, "Archaelogy of Experience," Rameshwar Broota, New Delhi: Vadehra Art Gallery, 2004, p. 10)

Speaking about a similar painting, Roobina Karode notes, "The realization that every part of the human body is expressive and can speak has made Broota move from the monumental to the minimal, from panorama to fragment. As in his imaginative landscapes in the 'metamorphosis' series, each small part of the body demands the same kind of attention and treatment, wherein the skeins and veins under the skin come alive." (Counterparts: Recent Paintings by Rameshwar Broota, New Delhi: Vadehra Art Gallery, 2009, p. 6)

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